UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
53880 ENGLISH STUDIES
318/348
COURSE PROSPECTUS
2016
COURSE COORDINATOR:
Dr Dawid de Villiers
Room 582
021 808 2042
dawiddv@sun.ac.za
Webpage: www.sun.ac.za/deptenglish
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
VISION
For more than three centuries, the Cape has served as a passageway linking West and East, North and
South. This conjunction of the local and the global, of time and place, consciously informs our goals in
the Department of English at Stellenbosch University. In our teaching and research, we ask how – and
why – modes of reading, representation and textuality mean differently, in different times and locales,
to different constituencies.
MISSION
We envisage the discipline as a series of transformative encounters between worlds and texts, a process
of reading, thinking, debate and writing which is well-placed to contribute not only to our students’
critical and creative knowledge of ‘English’ as a discipline, but also to the possibilities for change in
Stellenbosch, a site still marked by racial and economic disparity. If novels by Chimamanda Adichie
and Abdulrazak Gurnah, poetry from the Caribbean, and articles by Njabulo S. Ndebele can prompt
revised recognitions of racial, cultural and gendered identities, so too can fiction by Olive Schreiner or
poetry by Walt Whitman open us to challenging points of view about the relation between identity and
inherited ideas, postcolonial theory and the politics of the local. Our research areas (among them queer
theory, critical nature studies, diaspora studies, life writing, visual activism, the Neo-Victorian and
contemporary poetry) contribute to our diverse ability to position ‘English’ as a space of literatures,
languages and cultural studies which engages a deliberately wide range of thought, expression and
agency. We aim to equip our graduates with conceptual and expressive proficiencies which are central
to careers in media, education, NGOs, law, and the public service. Simultaneously, we recognize that
capacities of coherent thought and articulation can play an important role in democracy and
transformation.
In the English Department, we encourage a collegial, inclusive research community in which all
participants (staff, postgraduates and undergrads, fellows, professors extraordinaire and emeriti) are
prompted to produce original and innovative scholarship. To this end, there is a programme of regular
events in the department, among them research seminars featuring regional and international speakers;
workshops on research methods, proposal writing, and creative writing, and active reading and writing
groups. Such platforms complement the department’s vibrant InZync poetry project, and the digital
SlipNet initiative (http://slipnet.co.za/), enabling us to create a teaching and learning environment in
which the pleasures and challenges of ‘English’ as ‘englishes’ can be publicly performed and debated,
in Stellenbosch and beyond.
1
CONTENTS
1.
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
3
1.1
International Students
3
2.
COURSE STRUCTURE & CONTENT
4
2.1
Lectures
4-5
2.2
Lecture Schedule
6-7
2.3
Elective Seminars
8
2.4
First-Semester (318) Elective Seminar Timetable
9
2.5
First-Semester (318) Elective Seminar Descriptions
10-12
2.6
Second-Semester (348) Elective Seminar Timetable
13
2.7
Second-Semester (348) Elective Seminar Descriptions
14-17
2.8
Booklists
18
3
ASSESSMENT
18
3.1
Continuous Assessment
18
3.2
Progress Mark
19
3.3
Final Mark
19
3.4
Incomplete
20
3.5
Missed Work
20
4
TESTS
21
4.1
Test Marks
21
4.2
Test Dates
21
5
ESSAYS & ASSIGNMENTS
22
5.1
Submission of Written Work
22
5.2
Late Submissions
22
5.3
Plagiarism
23
6
POSTGRADUATE COURSES
23
7
BURSARIES
23
8
STAFF
25
2
ENGLISH STUDIES 318 & 348
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
The English 318 and 348 lectures introduce students to English literature of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, and to postcolonial and post-apartheid literatures of the late twentieth century.
Detailed descriptions of the double-period elective seminars from which students must choose one per
semester are available on pages 10-12 (318) and pages 14-17 (348) in this prospectus. Early
registration for the seminar of your choice is crucial to secure a place.
English Studies in the third year is semesterised: you may take both English 318 (in the first semester)
and English 348 (in the second semester) or you may choose to take either English 318 or English 348.
English 318 is not a prerequisite for taking English 348. Note that the courses are not repeated: English
318 is offered in the first semester and English 348 in the second semester. Students majoring in
English normally take English 318 and English 348. Students intending to proceed to English
Honours must complete both 318 and 348.
Students are expected to read all the setworks for the course. Essays and tests must demonstrate your
thorough grasp of and engagement with the texts and the relevant course content. Study guides such as
SparkNotes will not equip you to meet the course requirements. We suggest that you begin reading for
each term during the holidays.
1.1. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
International students may enrol for one or more 318 or 348 seminars as long as the student remains
within the credit limitation for his/her semester registration. Please see course descriptions on pages 1012 (318) and pages 14-17 (348) in this prospectus. All the seminars are worth 8 South African / 4 ECTS
/ 2 USA credits. Please note that all the courses listed below form part of the full English 318 or 348
semester course which is worth 24 South African credits.
If you register for an elective seminar only, your course credit value remains 8 South African credits
and you do not attend the 318 or 348 lectures, read the prescribed texts for the lecture courses or write
the tests based on the lectures at the end of each term. Students are required to sign up for the seminar
of their choice by sending an email to Mrs Johanita Passerini at johanitap@sun.ac.za before 12
February 2016 for 318 seminars and before 29 July for 348 seminars. It is crucial to ensure that the
elective course is listed on your final course registration form which is to be handed in to the
Postgraduate and International Office on the stipulated date.
Only students who have applied for the 24-credit English 318 or 348 course by the mainstream
application deadline and who have obtained pre-approval confirmation may register for the full
semester course. No late applications for mainstream course requests will be considered. Students who
register for the full 24-credit English 318 or 348 course should attend all four weekly lectures, write
the four set tests based on the lecture content and choose one seminar. When handing in your final
course registration form to the Postgraduate and International Office on the stipulated date, do not list
the elective you have chosen for the full semester course on your course registration form. Students
enrolled for the full semester course are also required to sign up for the seminar of their choice by
sending an email to Mrs Passerini at johanitap@sun.ac.za by the stipulated deadline.
Please contact your coordinator at the Postgraduate and International Office if you have any questions
about the information above. Should you have questions about English 318 or 348 course content,
please contact the course coordinator Dr Dawid de Villiers at dawiddv@sun.ac.za.
3
2. COURSE STRUCTURE & CONTENT
You have six periods per week, four fifty-minute lectures and one double-period elective seminar
class in a small group, usually of about 18 students.
2.1 LECTURES
Students are expected to attend all lectures, to read all the prescribed texts and any other material the
lecturer makes available. If, because of clashes with lectures from other courses, you cannot attend
some lectures you must consult with the course co-ordinator before enrolling in the course.
LECTURE TIMES & VENUES
Semester 1: 318
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Friday
15h00 – 15h50
9h00 – 9h50
11h00 – 11h50
12h00 – 12h50
Old Main Building 1023
Wilcocks 1012
Wilcocks 1012
Wilcocks 1012
15h00 – 15h50
9h00 – 9h50
11h00 – 11h50
12h00 – 12h50
Geology 1004
Geology 1004
Geology 1004
Geology 1004
Semester 2: 348
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Friday
See pages 6-7 for a detailed schedule of lectures for each term. It will also be posted on the English
318/348 notice board in the Arts and Social Sciences Building on the second floor.
TERM 1: THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY
Historian Eric Hobsbawm uses the phrase ‘the long nineteenth century’ to describe the period from
the French revolution (1789) to World War I (1914-1918). This component introduces students to the
English literature of this period. It begins by examining the conflict between reason and feeling in
Romantic poetry and explores literature’s emerging desire to provide an accurate representation of the
‘real’.
The Romantic Poets
Austen, J. Mansfield Park
Dickens, C. Great Expectations
James, H. The Portrait of a Lady
TERM 2: THE MODERNIST AND POSTMODERNIST CONDITION
This component introduces students to twentieth-century modernist and postmodernist literature. It
shows how discontinuity and displacement at the level of culture and subject are addressed as
problems of post-romantic and post-realist artistic form.
Conrad, J. Heart of Darkness
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land
Woolf, V. To the Lighthouse
DeLillo, D. White Noise
Coetzee, J.M. Foe
4
TERM 3: POSTCOLONIALISMS AND ATLANTIC AND INDIAN OCEAN WORLDS
This component introduces students to late twentieth-century postcolonial literatures and to literatures
of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. Ranging across several continents, it shows how transcultural
movements both facilitate and resist new forms of cultural practice and subjectivity.
Rushdie, A. Midnight’s Children
Caribbean poetry
Rhys, J. Wide Sargasso Sea
Morrison, T. Paradise
Gurnah, A. By the Sea
TERM 4: SOUTH AFRICAN WRITING FROM THE FIFTIES TO THE PRESENT
This component introduces students to examples of modern South African literary-cultural studies.
Focussing on apartheid and post-apartheid material, the component examines ways in which narrative
and visual forms of text engage creatively with questions of history, contemporaneity and identity.
Chapman, M. (ed.) The ‘Drum’ Decade
South African Short Stories
Moele, K. The Book of the Dead
Vladislavić, I. Portrait with Keys
South African Film
Students must attend all FOUR lectures
5
2.2. LECTURE SCHEDULE: 2016
Students must attend all FOUR lectures
SEMESTER 1: ENGLISH STUDIES 318
Mon 15:00
1 February
Introduction/Romantic
Poetry D. de Villiers
TERM 1: 1 February – 18 March
Tue 09:00
Wed 11:00
2 February
3 February
Romantic Poetry
Romantic Poetry
D. de Villiers
D. de Villiers
Fri 12:00
5 February
Romantic Poetry
D. de Villiers
8 February
Romantic Poetry
D. de Villiers
9 February
Romantic Poetry
D. de Villiers
10 February
Romantic Poetry
D. de Villiers
12 February
Theories of the Real
L. Green
15 February
Theories of the Real
L. Green
16 February
Theories of the Real
L. Green
17 February
Theories of the Real
L. Green
19 February
Theories of the Real
L. Green
22 February
Mansfield Park
D Roux
23 February
Mansfield Park
D. Roux
24 February
Mansfield Park
D. Roux
26 Feb
Mansfield Park
D. Roux
29 Feb
Mansfield Park
D Roux
1 March
Great Expectations
S. Viljoen
2 March
Great Expectations
S. Viljoen
4 March
Great Expectations
S. Viljoen
7 March
Great Expectations
S. Viljoen
8 March
Great Expectations
S. Viljoen
9 March
The Portrait of a Lady
D. de Villiers
11 March
The Portrait of a Lady
D. de Villiers
14 March
The Portrait of a Lady
D. de Villiers
15 March
The Portrait of a Lady
D. de Villiers
16 March
The Portrait of a Lady
D. de Villiers
18 March
Modernism
R. Oppelt
Mon 15:00
28 March
Public Holiday
RECESS: 19 March – 28 March
TERM 2: 29 March – 13 May
Tue 09:00
Wed 11:00
29 March
30 March
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
R. Oppelt
R. Oppelt
Fri 12:00
1 April
Heart of Darkness
R. Oppelt
4 April
Heart of Darkness
R. Oppelt
5 April
The Waste Land
D. de Villiers
6 April
The Waste Land
D. de Villiers
8 April
The Waste Land
D. de Villiers
11 April
The Waste Land
D. De Villiers
12 April
The Waste Land
D. de Villiers
13 April
To the Lighthouse
M. Jones
15 April
To the Lighthouse
M. Jones
18 April
To the Lighthouse
M. Jones
19 April
To the Lighthouse
M. Jones
20 April
To the Lighthouse
M. Jones
22 April
Postmodernism
D. Roux
25 April
White Noise
D. Roux
28 April
White Noise
D. Roux
27 April
PUBLIC HOLIDAY
29 April
White Noise
D. Roux
2 May
PUBLIC HOLIDAY
3 May
White Noise
D. Roux
4 May
White Noise
D. Roux
6 May
Foe
W. Mbao
9 May
Foe
W. Mbao
10 May
Foe
W. Mbao
11 May
Foe
W. Mbao
13 May
Foe
W. Mbao
6
SEMESTER 2: ENGLISH STUDIES 348
Students must attend all FOUR lectures
Mon 15:00
18 July
Postcolonialisms
T. Steiner
TERM 3: 18 July – 2 September
Tue 09:00
Wed 11:00
19 July
20 July
Postcolonialisms
Midnight’s Children
L. Green
T. Steiner
Fri 12:00
22 July
Midnight’s Children
T. Steiner
25 July
Midnight’s Children
T. Steiner
26 July
Midnight’s Children
T. Steiner
27 July
Midnight’s Children
T. Steiner
29July
Caribbean Poetry
S. Viljoen
1 August
Caribbean Poetry
S. Viljoen
2 August
Caribbean Poetry
S. Viljoen
3 August
Caribbean Poetry
S. Viljoen
5 August
Caribbean Poetry
S. Viljoen
8 August
Wide Sargasso Sea
S. Murray
9 August
PUBLIC HOLIDAY
10August
Wide Sargasso Sea
S. Murray
12 August
Wide Sargasso Sea
S. Murray
15 August
Wide Sargasso Sea
S. Murray
16 August
Wide Sargasso Sea
S. Murray
17 August
Paradise
N. Bangeni
19 August
Paradise
N. Bangeni
23August
Paradise
N. Bangeni
24 August
Paradise
N. Bangeni
25 August
Paradise
N. Bangeni
27 August
By the Sea
T. Steiner
29August
By the Sea
T. Steiner
30 August
By the Sea
T. Steiner
31 August
By the Sea
T. Steiner
2 September
By the Sea
T. Steiner
Mon 15:00
12 September
Drum Stories
N. Bangeni
RECESS: 3 September – 11 September
TERM 4: 12 September – 21 October
Tue 09:00
Wed 11:00
13 September
14 September
Drum Stories
Drum Stories
N. Bangeni
N. Bangeni
Fri 12:00
16 September
Drum Stories
N. Bangeni
19 September
Drum Stories
N. Bangeni
20 September
SA Short Stories
T. Slabbert
21 September
SA Short Stories
T. Slabbert
23 September
SA Short Stories
T. Slabbert
26 September
SA Short Stories
T. Slabbert
27 September
SA Short Stories
T. Slabbert
28 September
The Book of the Dead
W. Mbao
30 September
The Book of the Dead
W. Mbao
3 October
The Book of the Dead
W. Mbao
4 October
The Book of the Dead
W. Mbao
5 October
The Book of the Dead
W. Mbao
7 October
Portrait with Keys
S. Murray
10 October
Portrait with Keys
S. Murray
11 October
Portrait with Keys
S. Murray
12 October
Portrait with Keys
S. Murray
14 October
Portrait with Keys
S. Murray
17 October
SA Film
L. Green
18 October
SA Film
R. Oppelt
19 October
SA Film
D. de Villiers
21 October
SA Film
L. Green
7
2.3 ELECTIVE SEMINARS
Third-year elective seminars are similar to 278 elective seminars in that they offer students a wide
range of options from which to choose, as you will see from the course descriptions on pages 10-12
(318) and pages 14-17 (348) in this prospectus. You are required to attend one double-period
seminar every week. Seminar classes form part of the process of continuous assessment, without
which no final mark (“prestasiepunt”) can be assigned. Merely submitting the written work will not
be accepted as an adequate substitute for attendance at and participation in the discussions; please
note that attendance is compulsory. Electives proceed by means of class discussion and interaction
with the lecturer, so students are urged to get into the habit of preparing for and participating in
seminar group discussion. Lecturers welcome contributions and questions from students. Learning is
an active process, and we encourage our students to be critical and develop their own ideas and
insights. Passive or rote learning is not what university education is about. Lecturers factor class
participation into the seminar mark.
SEMINAR ENROLMENT
The 318/348 timetable will be posted on SUNLearn, where you should enrol for the timetable slot of
your choice. Please consult the elective seminar timetable on page 9 (318) and on page 13 (348) and
carefully read the elective descriptions before making your choice. The number of students per elective
seminar is limited to 18. If the class is already full, you will have to choose another elective. Be advised
that only a limited number of students can be accommodated in each group and it will be in your
interest to sign up early to secure a place in the seminar of your choice. Students who are repeating
English 318/348 will not be allowed to enrol for a seminar they attended in a previous
semester/year. Should fewer than 10 students enrol for an elective, that elective may have to be
cancelled. Class lists will be posted on the third-year notice board on the second floor of the Arts and
Social Sciences Building.
First semester (318): Enrolment for the first-semester elective seminars OPENS on SUNLearn on
18 January 2016 and CLOSES on 5 February 2016. Seminars commence in the second week of
the first term.
Second semester (348): Enrolment for the second-semester elective seminars OPENS on
SUNLearn on 3 May 2016 and CLOSES on 24 June 2016. Second-semester seminars commence
in the first week of the third term.
Please note: You are not allowed to change your seminar group without permission. If a genuine
timetable clash should occur, contact the department’s administrative officer (johanitap@sun.ac.za) or
the course co-ordinator immediately, so that you might be assigned an alternative group.
8
2.4 FIRST-SEMESTER (318) ELECTIVE TIMETABLE
318
TUTOR
TITLE
Time
1
Louise Green
Keeping it Real: Interrogating the Promise of
Objectivity
Mon 11:00 & 12:00
2
Nwabisa Bangeni
Literary Responses: Implicating the Self
Tues 10:00 & 11:00
3
Megan Jones
Complicating the “I”: Autobiography and SelfTues 14:00 & 15:00
Construction
4
Tina Steiner
From Kabul to Tel Aviv, via Lahore:
Contemporary Narratives of Conflict
Tues 14:00 & 15:00
5
Dawid de Villiers
Visions of the Real: Four American
Modernist Poets
Wed 09:00 & 10:00
6
Daniel Roux
On the Subject of Chaucer
Wed 09:00 & 10:00
7
Tilla Slabbert
Savour and Save: Introduction to Animal
Studies and Ecocriticism
Wed 14:00 & 15:00
8
Wamuwi Mbao
Rhizome and Radicant: Reading Flux
Thurs 14:00 & 15:00
9
Riaan Oppelt
Theatre of the Absurd
Thurs 14:00 & 15:00
Final venues for the electives will be on SUNLearn.
9
2.5 ENGLISH 318 ELECTIVE SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS
KEEPING IT REAL: INTERROGATING THE PROMISE OF OBJECTIVITY
Louise Green
“There can be no evidence, photographic or otherwise, of an event until the event itself has been named
and characterized” (Susan Sontag, On Photography).
How is it possible to represent the real – the complex social, political and material world – accurately?
What makes a story, a film or a newspaper report seem realistic?
Since the nineteenth century this has been an increasingly central question for both written and visual
forms of representation. This course will look at selected essays which address the question of
representing the real by theorists and writers from both the nineteenth and twentieth century. It will
explore the critical role played by the invention of photography on ways of thinking about realist
representation. Drawing on examples from a selection of genres, fiction, short stories, newspaper
reports and reality television, it will discuss the different claims to objectivity and realism made in
different contexts. Focusing on a close analysis of texts making these claims, it will look at the
strategies they employ to create a ‘reality effect’, a plausible, convincing story which we are happy to
accept as the truth.
Readings will be supplied
LITERARY RESPONSES: IMPLICATING THE SELF
Nwabisa Bangeni.
This elective draws on reader response and critical reading theories, and explores some of the following
concerns:

the extent to which knowledge is objective or subjective; the question of whether the world as
we experience it is culturally constructed; how the gap, historically, culturally and semiotically
between the reader and the writer is bridged, and the extent to which it is bridged

the question of the extent to which interpretation is a public act, conditioned by the particular
material and cultural circumstances of the reader, vs. the extent to which reading is a private act
governed by a response to the relatively independent codes of the text.
Using stylistic, linguistic and narratological methods, we will explore the manner in which texts govern
reader responses and, focusing on the affective responses to texts, we will explore how the reader
makes meaning of the text.
Heyns, Michiel. Bodies Politic, Jonathan Ball, 2008
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Thing Around Your Neck, Harper Collins, 2009
Angelou, Maya. Gather Together in my Name, Random House, 2009
COMPLICATING THE ‘I’: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELF-CONSTRUCTION
Megan Jones
In this elective we will explore writing the ‘Self’ and its relation to theories of modernism, feminism
and poststructuralism. We will work through some of the central tensions inhering in the genre of
autobiography; its positioning in the liberal humanist canon, its status as ‘fiction’ and its contemporary
diversification. Drawing on the ideas of thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, Virginia Woolf and
Jacques Derrida, we will ask how texts speak to their particular socio-historical moments in their
attempts to construct or deconstruct the ‘Self’. How does autobiography interrogate vectors of gender,
sexuality, race, class and nation? How might these literatures prompt us, as readers and scholars, to
rethink the parameters of our own subjectivities?
Joyce, J. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Penguin, 2000
Angelou, M. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ballantine, 2009
Coetzee, J.M. Summertime, Penguin, 2010
10
FROM KABUL TO TEL AVIV, VIA LAHORE: CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES OF CONFLICT
Tina Steiner
In this seminar we will read three novels from a growing field of contemporary literature written in
English which has in recent years become more visible. Reacting against popular media portrayals of
the Middle East (and Pakistan), these talented writers create narratives that engage with particular
conflicts, past and present, within regional and national geographies but also with an acute awareness
of global connections in a post 9/11 world. We will be asking ourselves how these writings inflect and
comment on debates about political, ethnic and religious affiliations and what they say about
trans/international trajectories. We will ‘travel’ from Afghanistan (Hosseini’s The Kite Runner), to
Pakistan (Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist) and to Israel (Khadra’s The Attack). Students who
take this elective will also be expected to watch In This World (2003, dir. Michael Winterbottom) and
Paradise Now (dir. Abu-Hassad).
Housseini, K. The Kite Runner, Bloomsbury, 2004
Hamid, M. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Penguin, 2007
Khadra, Y. The Attack, Vintage, 2007
VISIONS OF THE REAL: FOUR AMERICAN MODERNIST POETS
Dawid de Villiers
In the period between the two world wars – a period marked by a significant shift in the way the
Western world viewed itself and its destiny, as well as its relation to tradition – a number of remarkable
and influential poets emerged in America. This course aims to provide an introduction to the work of
four highly original poets, namely Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore and Williams
Carlos Williams, and to consider how they viewed their relation to the American canon as well as the
Western literary tradition. More specifically, our discussion and analysis of their poems will take
account of the ways in which they rethink, explore and express the relationship between individual
creative imagination and (historical) reality in an attempt to work out some sense of the human’s place
in a universe that in the eyes of many had begun to seem devoid of all reason and purpose.
The reading material for this course will be made available in the form of poetry hand-outs.
ON THE SUBJECT OF CHAUCER
Daniel Roux
Ideas about what it means, exactly, to be a “self” are transmitted from person to person, so they literally
move across geographic space and through time, flowing and changing like water. Somewhere in the
13th century, a great many of these rivers, flowing from all corners of the globe, started to converge
around the Mediterranean basin and Europe, forming a great new turbulent reservoir. We look at this
phenomenon now and call it “the emergence of the humanist subject”, a convenient and somewhat
inadequate name to label this confluence of tributaries that swelled in size until it had engrossed most
of Europe by the 16th century, and from there almost the whole world. We will use Geoffrey Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales to see how this constellation of ideas around human autonomy and agency emerged
in England and modulated the way people understood and experienced what it means to be a “self”.
This course is therefore not so much an “introduction to Chaucer” as it is a kind of boat trip through
time to a vantage point where we can appreciate the aetiology and scope of a very powerful cultural
concept – the humanist subject – that has radically transformed the globe.
Chaucer, G. The Canterbury Tales, Norton Critical Edition, 2005
11
SAVOUR AND SAVE: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL STUDIES AND ECOCRITICSM
Tilla Slabbert
This elective introduces students to key approaches in Animal Studies and ecocriticism by examining
the role of nature and animal representations in a range of literary and visual texts. We trace the main
shifts in perspectives of ‘nature’ from Enlightenment to the present day. The literary component
focuses on a selection of South African texts (prose and poetry) to illustrate the importance of literature
in conveying cultural perspectives and consciousness about the environment in a heterogeneous
society. In the visual component of the elective, we engage with the work of artists, such as Willie
Bester, Pieter Hugo and Strijdom van der Merwe, and examine the ‘spectacle’ of the animal and nature
in wild life documentaries and advertising. The elective aims to stimulate critical thinking about
complex local and global ecological concerns, to create a vital appreciation of the fragile
interdependency of all life forms, and to emphasise the importance of literature to inspire awareness
and life style changes beyond the class room walls.
Coetzee. John.M. The Lives of Animals, Princeton University Press, 1999
Mda, Zakes. The Heart of Redness, Oxford University Press, 2007
Winterbach, Ingrid. To Hell with Cronje, Human and Rousseau, 2002
RHIZOME AND RADICANT: READING FLUX
Wamuwi Mbao
Taking as its starting point the notion that writing is “a question of freeing life wherever it is
imprisoned, or of tempting it into an uncertain combat” (Deleuze and Guattari 171), this elective
engages with ways of seeing and reading the world that challenge the solidity of objects and their fixing
in the global cultural economies that proliferate our lives. How can we usefully extend our
understanding of a culture in perpetual motion?
Gevisser, M. Lost and Found in Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2014
Cole, T. Open City, Faber and Faber, 2012
THEATRE OF THE
POSTMODERNISM
ABSURD:
AN
EXISTENTIAL
BRIDGE
BETWEEN
MODERNISM
AND
Riaan Oppelt
This course looks at various plays written and performed in the 1950s which formed what theatre critic
Martin Esslin called “The Theatre of the Absurd”. Writers like Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Harold
Pinter, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee emerged in this period with challenging and eccentric works
like Waiting for Godot, The Bald Soprano, The Maids, The Birthday Party and The Zoo Story. These
plays broke away from conventional dramatic narrative and presented audiences with out-of-theordinary situations, presentations and an exigent sense of style and deliverance. After the 1950s, many
of the “Absurdists” gained continued acclaim with other works that, although reflective of certain
changes in style and mood, were still generally regarded as stemming from the earlier pieces of the
1950s. Students will read plays primarily from the 1940s and 1950s, as well as Esslin’s renowned
survey The Theatre of the Absurd, and engage in critical discussions that focus on the similarities
between these writers and their works as well as wider speculation on the merits of these works as
either modernist or postmodernist texts. Selected critical essays will be made available.
Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pocket Books 1964
Beckett, S. Waiting for Godot, MacMillan, 1987
Pinter, H. Pinter Plays: One, Methuen, 1978
Recommended reading:
Albee, E. The Zoo Story and The Sandbox
Genet, J. The Maids
Ionesco, E. The Bald Soprano& Other Plays
Ionesco, E. The Killer and Other Plays
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2.6 SECOND-SEMESTER (348) ELECTIVE TIMETABLE
348
TITLE
TUTOR
Time
1
Nwabisa Bangeni
Exploring South Africanness in Recent Fiction
Mon 9:00 & 10:00
2
Dawid de Villiers
“The Voiceful Sea”: Poetic Perspectives on the
Modern Subject
Tues 10:00 & 11:00
3
Wamuwi Mbao
Elusive Past, Uncertain Present: Theorising
South Africa Through Text and Screen
Tues 10:00 & 11:00
4
Shaun Viljoen
Queer Studies
Tues 14:00 & 15:00
5
Megan Jones
Naming the Strange: Africa and Its Many
Urbanisms
Tues 14:00 & 15:00
6
Tilla Slabbert
Memory, Reflection and Alienation in the novels
Wed 14:00 &15:00
of Kazuo Ishiguro and Antje Krog
7
Riaan Oppelt
Film Noir
Thurs 14:00 & 15:00
8
Tina Steiner
Narratives of Migration
Thurs 14:00 & 15:00
9
Daniel Roux
Death and Desire: Three Plays by Christopher
Marlowe
Thurs 14:00 & 15:00
Final venues for the electives will be on SUNLearn.
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2.7 ENGLISH 348 ELECTIVE SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS
EXPLORING SOUTH AFRICANNESS IN RECENT FICTION
Nwabisa Bangeni
This elective looks at three texts published in post-apartheid South Africa. Writing about debut novels
and the expansion of ‘South Africanness’ in fiction, Margaret Lenta writes: “South African debut
novels which have appeared since 1999, although diverse in their nature, and often related to the ethnic
or language group of their authors, demonstrate a general awareness of new freedoms and new
developments in South African society, as well as registering disappointment with the new regime.”
C.A. Davids’ debut novel will be used to explore some of these notions, while Achmat Dangor’s
collection of short stories allows for an exploration of South Africanness that is largely informed by the
various spaces that Dangor claims as ‘home’. In examining Verwoerd’s autobiography, the elective
considers ways in this genre is developing in South Africa.
Davids, C.A. The Blacks of Cape Town, Modjaji, 2013
Dangor, A. Strange Pilgrimages, Pan Macmillan, 2013
Verwoerd, M. The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied, NB Publishers, 2013
“THE VOICEFUL SEA”: POETIC PERSPECTIVES ON THE MODERN SUBJECT
Dawid de Villiers
Humankind’s engagement with the material fact and imaginative force of the sea goes far back in time;
one of Western culture’s foundational literary texts, Homer’s The Odyssey, is to an important extent the
account of a sea voyage. The sea has been seen and treated variously as an abyssal and absolute
boundary, a zone of pure possibility, a connective medium, a political terrain, and a natural resource. It
has had an immense impact on technological development and, in the modern period, has been centrally
involved in the rise of global capitalism and the shaping of our own geopolitical scenario. At the same
time it has persisted as a phenomenon that confronts human beings with the limitations of their claim
on the world, thereby lending itself to both heroic action and philosophical reflection. These are only
some of the reasons why the last decade has seen a marked increase in critical and creative work taking
the maritime world as point of departure. In this course we will join the conversation by approaching
the sea from some of the perspectives offered by poetry. Starting with a basic overview of the weight of
oceanic metaphorics in Western culture, we will devote the bulk of our attention to the question of how,
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the sea became a means for poets to engage with the
question of the modern subject.
McClatchy, J. D. (ed.) Poems of the Sea, Everyman, 2001
ELUSIVE PAST, UNCERTAIN PRESENT: THEORIZING SOUTH AFRICA THROUGH TEXT AND SCREEN
Wamuwi Mbao
This elective seeks to explore the worldliness of South African life forms, by examining representations
of South Africa to see how they stage encounters with indeterminacy, provisionality and the contingent.
The task of this elective is to submit ‘South Africa’ as a sign or symbol to a process of creative
defamiliarization. During the semester, we will use a select number of specific films and texts as a
means towards rethinking conceptual categories. However, students will be required to broaden the
ideas and insights so gained by conducting research into other films of their own choice.
Dangor, A. Bitter Fruit, Kwela, 2006
Behr, M. Kings of the Water, Abacus, 2006
Films
Jim Comes to Jo’burg. Dir. D. Swanson, 1949
Mapantsula. Dir. O. Schmitz, 1987
Jerusalema. Dir. R. Ziman, 2008
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QUEER STUDIES: AN INTRODUCTION
Shaun Viljoen
Queer studies has become a field that invites continual review of how we read and the assumptions we
bring to bear when making meaning of texts. We will explore the term “Queer” and contestations
around naming, desire and identity.
We begin by reading stories by four South Africans and one American – Richard Rive, Shaun de Waal,
Mathilda Slabbert, Natasha Distiller and Annie Proulx – to attempt “queer readings”, and to define
what “queer reading” is. We the look at the ideas of Michel Foucault in his History of Sexuality Vol. 1
and the final chapter of Judith Butler’s Bodies that Matter to help us think through discourses on sex,
sexuality, gender and textualised desire. We also view and discuss representation of sexuality in two
films – Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain and Greyson and Lewis’s Proteus.
Readings provided:
Behr, Mark. “Omission, Silence and Emphasis: Teaching Beloved and Brokeback Mountain in Early
21st Century USA”. Unpublished Conference Paper, 2007
Boucher, Leigh and Sarah Pinto. “‘I ain’t Queer’: Love, Masculinity and History in Brokeback
Mountain”. The Journal of Men’s Studies 15.3 (2007): 311-330
De Waal, Shaun. “These Things Happen”. These Things Happen. Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1996
Distiller Natasha. “Asking For It”. Urban 3. Ed. Dave Chislett. Spearhead, 2003
Rive, Richard. “The Visits”. Selected Writings. Ad Donker, 1977
Slabbert, Mathilda. “To Calm the Vapours of Rest”. Unpublished, 2006
Please buy the following:
Foucault, Michel. The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Vol 1, Penguin, 1998
NAMING THE STRANGE: AFRICA AND ITS MANY URBANISMS
Megan Jones
“By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the
strange.” Jane Jacobs
“Boarding her London-bound flight in Lagos, grandma Fatimat Abike absent-mindedly exceeded the
cocaine carry-on limit by 1.74 kg.” Teju Cole
This course will engage literary representations of the contemporary African city in light of a growing
body of interdisciplinary scholarship that figures the urban as a site of creativity and crisis. We will
explore tropes of migration, alterity, spectacle and uncertainty as they unfold in novels by NoViolet
Bulawayo, We Need New Names (2013), Teju Cole, Open City (2011) and Lauren Beukes, Zoo City
(2010). Alongside the fiction, we’ll work with critical studies by AbdouMaliq Simone, Achille
Mbembe and Lindsay Bremner among others, as well as documentaries on Johannesburg, Kinshasa and
Khayelitsha. What kinds of futures do these thinkers anticipate for the inhabitants of African cities, and
are they the futures we expect? Finally, the elective will gesture towards thinking through the city as an
interface for transnational and cosmopolitan encounters that locate the African urban within discourses
of the ‘global South’.
Bulawayo, N. We Need New Names, 2013
Cole, T. Open City, 2011
Beukes, L. Zoo City, 2010
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MEMORY AND IDENTITY: REMEMBERING THE PAST IN THE NARRATIVES OF KAZUO ISHIGURO AND
ANTJE KROG
Tilla Slabbert
In this elective we examine the role of memory and history in finding personal and collective meaning
within a specific context. We will study key theories of memory (i.e. Maurice Halbwacht, Pierre Nora,
Dominick LaCapra) and theories of narrative (i.e. Mieke Bal, Maurice Blanchot, Jacob Lothe) to
compare and analyse representation, form and perspective in literary and filmic texts. In the literary
component we explore questions about confession, forgiveness, ethics, power, gender, identity and
culture in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels A Pale View of Hills (1982) and Never Let Me Go (2006), and in
Antjie Krog’s memoir Country of My Skull (1998). The film component of the elective focuses on the
influence of Japanese cinema on Ishiguro’s first novel; we compare and discuss the cinematic
adaptations of Never Let Me Go (dir. Mark Romanek, 2010) and In My Country (dir. John Boorman,
2005); and study the ways in which documentary footage and re-enactment function as mediums for
remembrance, truth-telling and confronting trauma.
Ishiguro, K. A Pale View of Hills, Faber, 1982
Ishiguro, K. Never Let Me Go, Faber, 2006
Krog, A. Country of My Skull, Random House, 1998
Films and documentaries
Tokyo Story. Dir. Y. Ozu, 1953
The Day that Shook the World. Dir. S. Walker, BBC, 2008
Never Let Me Go. Dir. M. Romanek, 2010
In My Country. Dir. J. Boorman, 2005
Live footage from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings
FILM NOIR
Riaan Oppelt
What is now known as American film noir was originally described as romantic melodrama in the early
1940s, when war-time films like The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity presented North American
audiences with a brooding, darker atmosphere than the dramas and thrillers they had become
accustomed to. French film critics quickly coined the term Film Noir, meaning “Dark Cinema”, in
acknowledgement of a nihilistic, pessimistic world view that was a thematic core of many 1940s
‘melodramas’, usually based in the detective thriller sub-genre. Stylistically, film noir came to have a
heavy influence on cinema, with eccentric camera angles, deep focus photography and the nature of
dialogue and plot. Aspects of film noir that will be focused on include gender, homoeroticism, World
War II uncertainties, Cold War paranoia and acerbic contemporary studies of modern culture in retro
noir and neo-noir. The historical contexts of modernism and postmodernism are also crucial to our
understanding of classic film noir. Attention will also be given to the directors and actors most
commonly linked to film noir. In addition to the films screened, students are also asked to read two
novels that had a direct bearing on film noir, as well as excerpts from recent film noir surveys.
Films to be discussed include:
The Maltese Falcon. Dir. J. Huston, 1941
Double Indemnity. Dir. B. Wilder, 1944
Kiss Me, Deadly. Dir. R. Aldrich, 1955
The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. J. Frankenheimer, 1962
Chinatown. Dir. R. Polanski, 1974
Devil in a Blue Dress. Dir. C. Franklin, 1995
Sin City. Dirs. F. Miller and R. Rodriguez, 2005
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NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION
Tina Steiner
Refugees, migrants and asylum seekers depend on the stories they tell in order to make sense of their
fragmented lives and disorienting journeys. In this seminar we will explore contemporary migration
narratives by the Sudanese authors Leila Aboulela and Jamal Mahjoub and the Zanzibar-born author
Abdulrazak Gurnah. In looking at particular travellers and their itineraries we will gain a better
understanding of migration as a common condition of the postcolonial world. Moreover, we will be
asking whether there is such a thing as a “migrant aesthetics” in our reading of the texts. Relevant
postcolonial and migration studies theory will be provided alongside the primary texts.
Aboulela, L. The Translator, any edition
Gurnah, A. Pilgrims Way, out of print but will be made available to students
Mahjoub, J. Travelling With Djinns, Chatto & Windus, 2003
DEATH AND DESIRE IN THREE PLAYS BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Daniel Roux
Christopher Marlowe is one of the Renaissance era’s most intriguing and notorious playwrights. He
wrote six celebrated plays and a considerable body of poetry before being stabbed to death in a barroom brawl at the age of 29. During his lifetime he was accused of being an atheist and a homosexual,
and his extravagant, morally ambiguous plays continue to evoke fierce controversy even today. This
exciting dramatist offers us an introduction to the Renaissance as an era that allowed radical questions
about identity and morality. In this course, we will look at three of Marlowe’s best-known plays, Dr
Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward II, in order to see how Marlowe challenges Elizabethan
religious beliefs and orthodoxies concerning gender and power relations. In addition, this course
endeavours to introduce students to the Renaissance as a period of revolutionary change, violence,
spectacle and magic.
Marlowe, C. The Complete Plays, Penguin, 1986 (Dr Faustus; The Jew of Malta, Edward II)
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2.8 BOOKLISTS
LECTURES
Term 1
Applebaum, S. (ed). English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology, Dover, 1996
Austen, J. Mansfield Park, Norton, 2007
Dickens, C. Great Expectations, Norton, 2001
James, H. The Portrait of a Lady, Norton, 1995
Term 2
Conrad, J. Heart of Darkness, Norton, 2006
Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems, Dover, 1998
Woolf, V. To the Lighthouse, Oxford World’s Classics, 2000
DeLillo, D. White Noise, Viking, 1998
Coetzee, J.M. Foe, Penguin, 2001
Term 3
Rushdie, S. Midnight’s Children, Vintage, 1995
Rhys, J. Wide Sargasso Sea, Penguin, 2001
Morrison, T. Paradise, Vintage, 2014
Gurnah, A. By the Sea, The New Press, 2001
Term 4
Chapman, M. (ed.). The ‘Drum’ Decade, University of Natal Press, 2001
Moele, K. The Book of the Dead, Kwela, 2009
Vladislavić, I. Portrait with Keys, Umuzi, 2006
ELECTIVES
Students purchase only those books listed under the seminar elective for which they have enrolled.
3. ASSESSMENT
3.1 CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT
This Department, like some other departments in the University, has adopted the system of continuous
assessment (“deurlopende evaluering”). It is important that you realise the implications of this for you.
In most other departments your final mark (“prestasiepunt”) is a combination of a class mark
(“klaspunt”, often still called by its outdated name “predikaat”) and an examination mark
(“eksamenpunt”), carrying roughly the same weight. In these subjects, an examination mark of 50%
entitles you to pass the year, provided that you have gained admission to the examination. A reasonable
performance in the examination can thus cancel out a weak performance during the year.
With continuous assessment, however, all your written work counts towards a single final mark
which represents your performance for the course. There are no big, formal examinations: the end-ofyear examinations are replaced by a test which counts no more than any other test of equal length. It
follows that there is no opportunity to cancel out a weak class performance by a better performance in
an examination.
Please note that to pass the course, students must pass both the lecture component and the
elective component. That is, students must average at least 50% in the two semester tests, and
must also average at least 50% for the essay and elective mark, when these marks are combined.
It is therefore vital that students attend all lectures and electives, and read the setworks for each
component. If you are not attending lectures AND electives AND reading the setworks you will
most likely fail the course.
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3.2 PROGRESS MARK
Progress marks are calculated at the end of the first semester for English 318 and at the end of the
second-semester for English 348, so students know where they stand. There is also no reassessment
(“herevaluering”) as in most other subjects. The aim of this is to encourage and reward consistent work
during the year rather than a last-minute spurt of cramming. It is most important, therefore, to attend all
the classes and complete all the written assignments and all the tests.
The Department has the right to fail students whose attendance is poor or who have not handed in all
the required written work. See 3.4 and 3.5 below.
Your Progress Mark has no official status, and is meant to be merely what it is—a gauge of your
performance so far.
3.3 CALCULATION OF FINAL SEMESTER MARK
Your final mark will be calculated according to a formula which takes into account work required for
your elective as well as test answers. The proportions for both English Studies 318 and English
Studies 348 are as follows:
Prepared work tested at official test times (based on a mid-semester test and an
end-of-semester test )*
60%
One essay written under supervision of your elective tutor:
20%
Based on attendance at and contribution to elective group discussions and on a
minimum of two written assignments:
20%
*Note that the final test mark at the end of each semester is calculated as the average of all four test
questions.
Final marks will appear on the English 318/348 notice board on the second floor. Please do not
telephone or ask the Departmental Officer for them.
Please note:
To pass the course, students must pass both the lecture component and the elective component.
That is, students must average at least 50% in the two semester tests, and must also average at
least 50% for the essay and elective mark, when these marks are combined. It is therefore vital
that students attend all lectures and electives, and read the setworks for each component. If you
are not attending lectures AND electives AND reading the setworks you will most likely fail the
course.
ALL appeals regarding ANY test or essay mark MUST be made within TWO WEEKS of the said
mark having been announced.
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3.4 “INCOMPLETE”
The system of continuous assessment requires your preparation for and active participation in all
aspects of the course. This means that at the very least you have to
 write all the official tests set in the course of the year and

participate satisfactorily in seminars by doing the reading, attending the classes and
submitting all the written tasks by the set deadline.
Students who fail to meet these requirements will be regarded as not having completed the course and
will be registered as “incomplete.”
Lecture and seminar attendance is compulsory. Your seminar presenter keeps a record of
attendance and you will be excused from class only if you provide a valid reason for your absence,
with the relevant corroborating documentation. A valid reason would be medical incapacity or one of
the other compassionate grounds specified by the University regulations (e.g., a death in the close
family), as well as any formally arranged absence related to university business (in which case
arrangements have to be made in advance).
It is your responsibility to send an email explaining your absence to the seminar presenter no later than
the day following your absence and to provide the relevant supporting documentation, for example the
original medical certificate if you have been ill, within a week of your absence.
If you miss a seminar and do not provide a valid excuse and supporting documentation you will receive
an official warning letter from the course presenter. If you miss two classes without a valid excuse and
supporting documentation you will be deemed “incomplete”.
Even with the submission of supporting documentation, if you miss three meetings of your seminar
group (in other words, a quarter of the course) the Department will consider you “incomplete” since
your presence at and participation in the seminar group is a basic requirement for completing the
module. In exceptional cases the Department will consider any formal appeal submitted.
3.5 MISSED WORK
SEMINARS
The submission of all written work by the set deadlines is a basic course requirement. Students who fail
to do so will be regarded as “incomplete” and will not be able to complete the course. If you have a
valid reason for being unable to submit the work by the deadline, it is your responsibility to notify your
lecturer via email before the work is due, and to provide the relevant corroborating document, e.g. the
original copy of the medical certificate if you have been ill. The work must then be submitted by the
new deadline set by the lecturer.
According to a Senate Decision a student who fails to write the required number of exercises,
essays and tests may be given a final mark of less than 50%, regardless of his/her arithmetical average.
TESTS
Please note: It is your responsibility to check test times (see “Test Dates” below) and venues before
a scheduled test.
You are reminded that the University regulations for test opportunities are not the same as those for
examinations. The English Department uses the system of continuous assessment (“deurlopende
evaluering”) for all its undergraduate courses, and thus students must write a test at the first
opportunity. Only in the case of illness (for which the original doctor’s certificate— not a
photocopy—must be produced), or on one of the other compassionate grounds specified by the
University regulations (e.g., a death in the close family) will the student be allowed to write at the
supplementary (“siektetoets”) opportunity. The Department will also accommodate students who,
20
according to the official test timetable, have test clashes – on the same day and at the same time – with
that of another subject, but this must be arranged with the Department well in advance, and proof must
be provided.
Under the new University regulations only one other test time is provided, and students who have
applied for and have been granted permission will have to write at that time. It is the responsibility
of students who miss the first test date to report as soon as possible after their return to the campus to
the Administrative Officer (Ms Carol Christians, Room 581), in order to register for the supplementary
test date. You will only be allowed to write the supplementary test if your name appears on the list
of students registered for the test—all other students will be denied access to the test venue. No
further opportunities to write will be provided.
Final year students please note: Writing the supplementary test (in November) will mean that you
will only be able to graduate in March of the following year.
The Department may set open-book questions in tests, which students will be unable to answer unless
they have a copy of the relevant text with them. No sharing will be allowed.
4. TESTS
4.1 TEST MARKS
In exceptional cases, where a student is convinced that a test answer has been seriously underrated, the
procedure of appeal, which must be initiated no more than two weeks after the marks become available,
is as follows:



Make a note of the marker’s name written on the cover of the script (consult the Departmental
Officer if the name or initials are unclear).
Make an appointment with the marker to discuss why the mark was given.
If the student wishes to pursue the matter further, the script is taken by the marker to the Course
Coordinator who will assign a second marker (another member of staff) to re-evaluate the script.
It should be stressed that students should not abuse this procedure and should resort to it only when
they are convinced that they have a legitimate case for re-evaluation. Their test script must have
received a mark that is at least 10% less than their pre-test progress mark, and the student must request
a remark within two weeks of the publication of the test results.
4.2 TEST DATES
MARCH/APRIL
Test
6 April at 17:30
Supplementary
6 May at 17:30
27 May at 9:00
Supplementary
13 June at 9:00
Supplementary
12 October at 17:30
Supplementary
17 November at 9:00
MAY/JUNE
Test
SEPTEMBER
Test
13 September at 17:30
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER
Test
4 November at 9:00
If your write the 17 November supplementary test, you will only graduate in March 2017.
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DEAN’S NOTICE ON TEST DATES:
Notices with dates, times and venues will be available on the notice board and on SUNLearn two weeks
prior to tests. Students will not be allowed to choose between the two test sessions in a module. The
first test session in a module will be compulsory for all students.
A student who for medical reasons certified by a physician is unable to take the first test in a module
will be allowed to take the test during the second examination session in that module. The student will
be required to complete an official declaration on a specified form to declare that he/she had indeed
been ill.
With the exception of a Dean’s Concession Examination for final-year students who qualify for such a
test, no further examinations will follow the second test sessions.
See Missed Work (3.5 above).
5. ESSAYS AND ASSIGNMENTS
In addition to written assignments set by your elective tutor in the course of the semester you will be
required to write one essay of 3000 words. This counts for 20% of your final mark. All work must be
handed in on the due date; late submissions will be penalised. Students who fail to submit ALL of
the required work will be regarded as ‘incomplete’, which in effect means they cannot pass the
course. No outstanding work will be accepted after the end-of-semester test. Consult the
Department’s “Guide to Presenting Essays,” available from the Departmental Officer. The rules and
conventions spelt out in this guide must be followed. Essays which do not observe these rules may be
returned for rewriting.
5.1 SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN WORK
Please note the following rules with regard to submitting written assignments and essays:
Students must make and keep a copy of any written work they submit. Unless otherwise stated, work
must be handed directly to the lecturer in the seminar class on the due date. A signed and dated copy of
the Department’s declaration on plagiarism (see 5.3) must accompany your submission. You should
also submit your work to Turnitin. Dual submission (hard copy and Turnitin or email and Turnitin) is
always necessary to ensure that work does not go astray.
Late submissions must be handed to the lecturer in person or emailed. They must not be handed to the
Departmental Officer or left in post boxes.
5.2 LATE SUBMISSIONS
You are reminded that ALL required written work must be handed in for your record to be complete. If
you fail to hand in all of your assignments and essays, you will be regarded as “Incomplete” and you
will fail the course. Even if an assignment or essay is so late that it will earn 0%, it must be handed in.
No work will be accepted after the end-of-semester test. NB: Late submissions have to be genuine
and worthwhile attempts at the topic.
A late penalty of 5% of the mark per day will be applied from the due date of the assignment or essay.
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that lecturers are notified by email about the submission of
late work.
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5.3 PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism refers to any attempt by a student to pass off someone else’s work as his or her own; it may
for example be the work of a fellow student, a friend or relative, or a critic whose work you have found
in the library or on the internet. At all times distinguish between the ideas of those whose work you
have read and your own comments based on their ideas. The safest, the fairest, way to
acknowledge your indebtedness is to use established conventions of documentation and
referencing such as the MLA Style. Please consult the “Guide to Writing Essays” (available on
the Department’s website) in order to check how to reference properly in MLA style.
Please note that plagiarism includes the use of notes or critical material (from the internet or elsewhere)
which is memorised and repeated (often word for word) in test answers, without any attempt to
acknowledge indebtedness to the source (e.g. SparkNotes). Depending on the extent and seriousness of
the offence, such answers will fail, and are likely to receive a mark of 0%. The procedures prescribed
by the university for cases of plagiarism will be followed.
Plagiarism is a most serious academic offence, which negates everything we try to encourage in our
students in this department. If you are unsure of what is meant by “plagiarism,” consult your tutor. Do
not risk having an essay returned with “0” as your mark – or even your exclusion from the course. A
signed and dated copy of the Department’s declaration on plagiarism must accompany your essay.
Copies of the statement are available from your lecture. It is also included in the “Guide to Writing
Essays” and is available on the Department’s website.
Students are expected to familiarise themselves with the Faculty policy on plagiarism, which spells out
the different categories and procedures to be followed in dealing with cases of plagiarism.
Any attempt to represent someone else’s work as your own will be regarded as a most serious
offence and (depending on the severity of the offence) may result in your exclusion from the
course and from the university.
6. POSTGRADUATE COURSES
The English Department offers a stimulating and challenging Honours programme. Our graduates find
that the training provides them with a good grounding for their future professions or further graduate
studies in literary and / or cultural studies, as well as offering an opportunity for personal growth. It is
not unusual for students to be profoundly influenced by the sustained and extensive contact with
English literary and / or cultural studies that the course enables.
The official mark for admission to the Honours programme is 65% for both semesters (i.e. English
318 and English 348). Students are invited to submit their applications early in the second semester,
and can address any queries to the Honours Co-ordinator, Dr Riaan Oppelt (roppelt@sun.ac.za).
The Postgraduate Prospectus for next year will be available during the course of the last term, but this
year’s prospectus (available from the Departmental Officer’s office) or the Department’s website will
give you a good indication of what is on offer.
The Department may offer a merit bursary for a top performing third-year student who wishes to do
Honours in the Department. The bursary is aimed at increasing the diversity of our Honours class.
7. BURSARIES
Do bear in mind that there are various bursaries available for continued study in the English
Department. Consult Calendar 2016, Part 2. For further inquiries contact Ms F Niemann at the
University Administration (tel 808 4627; email fn@sun.ac.za).
Note especially the Babette Taute bursaries which offer generous amounts (up to as much as R7000) for
fees etc., as well as book grants for buying setworks for students going into their third year. Also note
the Winnifred Wilson bursary.
23
VAN SCHAIK’S ANNUAL BOOK PRIZES
Three prizes are awarded each year to the student who achieves the highest overall marks for the year
(i.e. only third-year students who have completed both semesters will be eligible for the prize):
English 178:
R200
English 278:
R300
English 318/348:
R500
24
8. STAFF OF THE DEPARTMENT
Please note that some staff members are on leave in 2016.
The departmental telephone number is 808-2040 (Departmental Secretary) and each member of
staff can be dialled directly on his/her own number.
ACADEMIC STAFF
e-mail
Ext
Room
Bangeni, NJ (Dr)
njban
2399
585
De Villiers, DW (Dr)
dawiddv
2043
583
Ellis, J (Dr)
jellis
2227
588 (on study leave)
Green, L (Prof)
lagreen
3102
564
Jones, M. (Dr)
meganj
2048
572
Mbao, W (Dr)
wmbao
2042
582
Murray, S (Prof)
samurray
2044
573
Musila, G (Prof)
gmusila
2046
586 (on study leave)
Oppelt, RN (Dr)
roppelt
2049
580
Roux, D (Dr)
droux
2053
570
Slabbert, M (Dr)
mslabbert
3652
578
Steiner, T (Prof)
tsteiner
3653
566
Viljoen, SC (Prof)
scv
2061
575
2605
562
PROFESSORS EMERITUS/EMERITA
Prof L de Kock
leondk
Prof AH Gagiano
ahg
PROFESSORS AND LECTURERS EXTRAORDINAIRE
Prof Rita Barnard (University of Pennsylvania)
Prof Maria Olaussen (Gothenburg University)
Prof Gabeba Baderoon (Pennsylvania State University)
Prof Okello Ogwang (Makerere University)
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Mrs Colette Knoetze
colettek
(Senior Departmental Officer)
2040
574
Mrs Johanita Passerini
(Administrative Officer)
2051
581
johanitap
25